Unkillable Read Online Free PDF Page A

ecstasy-ladened paradise. But tonight, the low-grade electrical impulses that flitted through their brains masquerading as thoughts were irrelevant.
    As I grew closer, they had to work overtime not to notice me, and they weren’t very convincing. With every other step I took, the ancient knee brace made a terrible screeching noise. Oh yeah, everybody saw me, and they all were slavering for the entertainment of watching me be turned away. Sure they might be nothing more than supplicants, but they felt like they had a chance of getting in. They were still in the lottery; they could get lucky and still be cool tonight.
    But I saw it clear. They might be cool tonight, but tomorrow – when they woke up and their coke was gone and all they had left was the story of a wild night they would never remember in any detail – they’d have to chase it all again.  Fuck them. Fuck their drugs. Fuck the tweakers and the skinny girls chomping on the inside of their mouths because their discount X was cut with speed. They looked down on me. They knew I wasn’t cool. I wasn’t. I was something better than cool. I was cold.
    I knocked the velvet rope over and kept walking.
    “Hey, hey, hey,” cried one of the bouncers as he reached out to stop me. I didn’t try to make it past his arms. I stepped right into his face. Preppy tough guy didn’t know what to do. Part of his brain was wondering how to deal with me, but more of it was thinking about how to keep me from messing up his suit. How he could do his job and look still cool for the people in the line? Shit like that.
    I slid the scalpel in between two of his perfectly sculpted abs. I didn’t twist. I didn’t slice. I just stuck it in about an inch and a half and pulled right back out. At first, he didn’t feel it. His mouth kept vomiting words. But even as he was trying to talk me into obeying him – showing off for the crowd, “Wouldn’t you be happier at some other club?” – the drop in blood pressure had registered in his hypothalamus. Even though this kid was too stupid to live, his body’s autonomic nervous system was going to try and keep him alive anyway. The blood drained out of his face.
    “Don’t make me hurt you, douche--” He never got to finish the word with “-bag.” He collapsed like a puppet after the strings had been cut.
    The other guy slammed me to the ground. My head bounced off the sidewalk. He yelled at me, but I couldn’t hear anything. I felt a foot on the back of my neck. When I opened my eyes I saw his other foot right in front of my face. I drew the scalpel across his Achilles tendon. As his leg gave way, I felt the foot on my neck grow lighter. I held onto it, and as he fell backwards, he lifted me to my feet.
    I looked at the people in line. They looked at me. They looked at the bouncers writhing in agony on the ground. Some of them even thought about helping, for about a second. But the bouncers didn’t have any more cool to dispense.
    I unclipped the velvet rope and rasped, “Open season.” Two girls rushed in first. Then the rest of the line stormed the place.
    With chaos as an advance guard, I entered the building.

    * * * * *

    Chapter 7
     
    The club wasn’t lit as much as it was punctuated by spotlights. Figures appeared in the harsh light and disappeared into the blackness, somehow in sync with the heavy envelope filter that modulated the music.
    The sound was so loud that it pounded through me. It almost felt like my heart was racing. As if I was alive again. As I made my way through the crowd it struck me that everyone here was trying to look like me, with pale skin and heavy eyeliner. They wanted to be dead. Only they couldn’t pull off the look. They cared too much. They moved too urgently. They cared about what he said, or she said. They got tired or thirsty.
    When you’re dead, you don’t care about any of that.
    Lights stabbed through the darkness and the sweat and the smell of stale beer. A girl wearing see-through